No Nudes Ever…Ever!

Oct 13

Written By Pink Flowers

I seriously wonder if most people even realize they nekked under they clothes, y’all — for realz!

I had a wild dream last night that somebody started a service for people who wanted to hide evidence they had ever taken a naked picture. Somehow it started when I took some selfies and wanted to store them safe away. By the end of the dream it was a booming business and I was the poster child for all things nudity. Of course, my pictures got used to advertise so everybody saw my goods. It got complicated and there was a lawsuit, but by then the damage had been done.

The world I grew up in made it clear as hell the body was a shameful thing. Any hint that a person had actual skin under whatever required hipness you was supposed to be wrapped in, the kids I grew up around exploded into howling ass laughter. Time I got to high school, and gym class called for us all to strip down and shower together was some barbaric shit. Fuck however much taboo nakedness was forced on me, in doctors’ offices, public athletics and a few other spots, message still came loud and clear that being nekked was damnable.

By the time sex got introduced—forget it. If we wasn’t even supposed to acknowledge nudity, for sure nobody was ever supposed to touch anybody else while they was naked. The reaction to Madonna and Miss America Vanessa Williams sealed the deal on nakedness for me. The near impeachment of Bill Clinton reinforced that sex the worst thing a person could do in the public eye. The cheating part was inconsequential if you ask me. Nobody wanted to imagine a President who had sex.

Sex and body positivity are essential AF when it comes to revolutionary work. It ain’t about everybody running around streaking and having non-stop sex in the plain of day. The horror of that image is enough though to show how much work needs to be done. Shame one of the most powerful tools used to keep humans under the thumb of the entities that want to make sure we never feel good enough to be responsible adults. When it comes to our skin, most people still children.

I’d like to get proved wrong on this one. If I’m full of shit, hit me up in the comments with why you think so. Obviously, if your ass is just triggered, nobody told you to be up in my feed!

Pink Flowers is a Black trans artist, peacemaker, educator, and pleasure activist whose work lives at the intersection of embodiment, governance, and cultural transformation. Trained in Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, and Navajo-informed Peacemaking practices, Pink designs spaces where conflict can be addressed, power can be examined, and joy can be reclaimed.

Her artistic and pedagogical practice draws from African trickster cosmology, Brazilian Joker traditions, shamanic ritual, and cooperative economics. She is the founder of the award-winning Falconworks Theater Company (2005–2021), which used popular theater to build civic capacity and participatory leadership in historically marginalized communities.

Pink served for over five years as a trained Peacemaker in the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, facilitating restorative processes within the New York City court system. From 2015–2018, she worked in cooperative business development with the Center for Family Life, supporting worker-owned enterprises in immigrant communities.

She currently serves as Director of Education and Training for the Inter-Cooperative Council in Ann Arbor, where she leads leadership development and conflict engagement initiatives. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Stretch Festival in Berlin and the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference.

Across ritual, performance, mediation, and institutional design, Pink’s work asks a central question:

What becomes possible when we refuse shame and choose conscious power instead?

The 700 Club

Dungeons & Dragons